A Friendly Reminder That There Were 0 Fatal Jetliner Accidents Last Year

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Good news, nervous fliers: Last year was an incredibly safe one for air travel.

That's because not a single passenger died from a jet accident in 2015, according to data released last month from the International Air Transport Association.

It's an incredible feat -- and it's also a sign that air travel is getting safer as a whole.

Technically, the skies weren't totally accident-free last year. There were four fatal airplane accidents in 2015 per the IATA's count, but each involved a turboprop, a smaller, older plane model that U.S. airlines have mostly phased out, IATA spokesperson Perry Flint told HuffPost.

Those four turboprop accidents -- none of which occurred in the U.S. -- resulted in a total of 136 deaths worldwide. Compare that to 641 total air accident deaths in 2014 and the five-year average of 504, and you'll agree that it was indeed a very safe year for air travel. (Those numbers exclude the crashes on Metrojet and Germanwings, which were deemed acts of unlawful interference and therefore not classified as accidents, Flint said.)

Watch Tony Tyler, the director general and CEO of IATA, discuss last year's numbers below (story continues after the video):

New technology -- like better navigation systems and stronger seat design -- have contributed to a drop in plane accidents over the last decade or so, Flint said.

"Every accident is one too many," he told HuffPost. Still, "last year was an extraordinarily safe year."

That's music to our flying ears.

H/T Time

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